Legends of Awesomeness
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: In which a mad scientist with a time machine and an even madder president of Panem with a serious case of sadism find it a great idea to whisk twenty-four very strange kids out of the twenty-first century to make them fight to the death with various pieces of sports equipment. Yeah, great idea, guys. (Warning: mischief not quite managed. Rated T 'cuz it's Hunger Games.)
1. In Which I Hit a Taco

**A necessary explanation in the form of an Author's Note:**

**My school is small. Very small. In fact, in my class (NO, I AM NOT TELLING THE INTERNET WHAT GRADE WE'RE IN) we have just enough people for one Hunger Games (actually, we have only nineteen, but I added a few people from last year, so we have exactly twenty-four). Well, word got around that I was writing a Hunger Games fanfic *ahem, Fighting Fire* and some brilliant someone got the equally brilliant idea of asking me (quite loudly so EVERYONE could hear) if I could write a fanfic with **_**them **_**in it, 'them' meaning the person who was asking.**

**Well, as you can probably guess, a few people overheard. And they so happened to get this outlandish idea that I was making a Hunger Games with **_**our class. **_**So before I knew it, I had a bunch of kids on my hands, all demanding a Hunger Games with all of us as tributes.**

**Well, that might be an exaggeration. I bet that at least a quarter of the class didn't even know about it until I told them. And I bet that there's a bunch of them who **_**aren't **_**reading this right now.**

**I'm fine with that.**

**I decided to tell it from my point of view. It would be easiest, after all. So, a warning: all who are reading, know that I am telling this from the POV of Skylar Liu, aka me. Yes, Skylar Liu is also a pseudonym. Everyone in the following story is using a pseudonym and I have purposefully made our personal descriptions very vague. What didja think, that I was going to give out our freaking pictures all over the Internet?!**

**So, speech said and done, I shall end the author's note and resume in the actual story.**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. So Suzanne Collins, don't sue.**

* * *

I think luck hates my guts. If there's even such a thing as luck. Maybe it's just that sometimes life simply stinks on ice. Hey, I'm just saying. Because at the time I was supposed to be sitting at home and updating my fanfiction, I found myself sitting in some weird metal prison cell thingy with these two creepy scientist guys staring at me. One of them had skin the color of a lime and the other one looked like a cross between my favorite anime character and one of my favorite book characters.

Like I said, creepy.

So here's what I think happened. I say that I _think_ it happened because my mind is a strange thing — I call it the Infinite Void of Darkness and Off-Topic Hyperactivity — so I don't like to trust it all too much. It gets off topic really quickly, hence the name. Like, when my science teacher mentioned the "expression" of Jack Frost in science class, I went from partially paying attention to the process of sublimation to completely daydreaming about Rise of the Guardians.

…Whoops. See?

Hehe, oh well. You just got a glimpse into my mind that you probably never wanted to see anyway.

What was I talking about again?

Oh yes.

Well, it started out just a normal day at my super small school in our super small town. You can probably guess simply from those words that it didn't _stay _normal. But, in all honesty, it was never normal to begin with. My classmates and I are not in any way possible normal people. We're — how can I say this nicely — weird. I mean that with all the sincerity of my heart. There aren't very many of us, so we're pretty tightly bonded, like siblings. Anyone who has siblings will know what I mean.

It was eighth period on a Monday — of course, it _had _to be on a Monday — which meant gym class. Yay. Gym class is usually held outside unless it's super cold, and it was not yet cold enough to stay inside. But it was pretty dang cold anyway. I had my soft fleecy white jacket and sweatpants, but the wind somehow found a way in.

We were playing softball. Or, more accurately, trying to. My team was in the outfield and I was standing in what I liked to call a Totally Useless Spot — that is to say, a spot way in the outfield where nothing would come anyway due to the strong crossbreeze and the extremely low probability that anyone could actually hit that far. One of my classmates, a tall and curly-haired kid named Brendan Lottes, was complaining loudly from his Equally Useless Spot about five meters away.

"IT'S SO COLD!" he yelled, spinning around on his heels and rubbing his arms.

"I KNOW!" I yelled back with equal volume. He did not find this in any way odd, hence proving my point that we were all weird here. We embraced the weirdness.

At the plate, Wilson Tree hit the ball and took off running to first base. I watched the ball soar through the sky and didn't take my hands out of my pockets. I started giggling because they were all idiots, the whole lot of them. I had a tendency to think such things when we were playing games, because after eight hours of being in the presence of other humans, I started going a little bit hysterical. My human tolerance ratios had not always been this low, trust me, but they took a drastic decline when I found my true love — writing.

(Sometimes, I wonder if my freaky obsession with writing is bad for my sanity.

I always decide that it probably is.)

Back to the game. I can't tell you the score, nor how many people had batted or how many outs or who was pitcher or how many innings we'd had, because I wasn't paying attention. Instead, me and Brendan started singing the song for conjugating the Spanish verb _ser_ (which, if you didn't know, means "to be") that we'd learned in sixth period. It was extremely annoying and ridonkulously catchy, but we were cold and bored out of our brains so we sang it anyway.

I stopped singing when I saw something shiny.

Okay, maybe that sounded a bit weird. But seriously. It was something shiny. I don't know if anyone else saw it, because I'm telling this from only my point of view and I'm not going to start changing POVs like _some _writers do, but I know it was definitely there. I trusted my eyes on this one.

It was like a mirage, kind of. About one hundred yards away from home plate, directly behind the catcher, I saw the figure of a man. As much as I could tell from that distance, he was clad in all white. The shiny thing I had seen was…a belt buckle? Then the air shimmered again, and he was gone.

"What?" Brendan asked, noticing that I'd stopped singing the Spanish song with him.

"Nothing," I said distractedly, blinking and taking off my glasses. "I thought I saw something. My glasses are dirty again, I think." But I knew I was lying. I had _seen _that.

Someone got out, and we switched sides. I managed to get at the very back of the hitting line, so I'd be last up to plate if we even got that far. I didn't like hitting. Well, let me amend that statement. I didn't like hitting _the ball _with _the bat. _I still do not to this very day. I was very bad at it. I have horrible depth perception, so I don't always know when or where to swing. I have a horrible grip, too — once, when I swung the bat and actually hit the ball, I let go of the bat, and it sailed right over my head and hit Landon Allens right in the gut. I blamed the bat, and from then on I resolved not to use it until I absolutely had to.

But somehow, I got pushed up to the front of the line. I think it was something about our gym teacher noticing that I hadn't batted for the past three innings, or something else like that. I dunno.

Anyway, I went up and took up the metal baseball bat. Warily, everyone behind me took a few steps back and put their hands up to cover whatever body part they thought would hurt the most if hit by, say, a flying metal bat, or something like that. The catcher, who was a thin, athletic girl by the name of Anna Purpleston, scooted a bit to the side.

The pitcher, who was a kid with glasses named Gavin Johanson, threw the ball. I swung uselessly at it. Anna caught it. No one said "strike one" because we were all bored out of our brains and we could all, quite literally, sense that gym class and henceforth the school day was almost over. At least, I don't think anyone said "strike one". In all honesty, I wasn't paying much attention. I was just focusing on not throwing the bat again.

"Skylar!" the gym teacher yelled. "You're holding the bat wrong!"

I looked at the bat. Well, how the heck was I _supposed _to hold it? The teacher came over, adjusted my hands into some position that felt wrong to me, and walked away.

Gavin threw the ball. I swung and tried not to let go of the bat. Surprisingly, I felt something connect with the bat, and I watched in utter shock and awe as the ball sailed up into the air…and left.

"YES!" I yelled, forgetting about the bat in my hands and jumping up and down. "I HIT THE BALL!"

"It was foul," Nelson Stones deadpanned.

"I DON'T CARE, I HIT THE BALL AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS! I'M ACTUALLY GETTING GOOD AT THIS GAME!"

I'd like to say that no one thought this was weird. Unfortunately, I think that _everyone _thought it was weird.

(Fortunately, I didn't care. I'd lost my ego with my mind a long time ago. I've never tried to find either of them and I don't want them back, so if you've seen either, don't tell me.)

"Ooohh-kaaay…" Nelson said, exchanging a glance with David Valley that, quite clearly, said _"she's crazy"._

I noticed it but I really didn't care at the moment. I had other things to focus on. The ball had gone way, way left, almost backwards due to the strong crosswind that day. Which, when all math is said and done, means that it was about twenty feet away. As Wilson Tree ran to get it (that kid has way too much energy for his own good) I noticed something strange. A flicker of movement, of some spectral figure — similar to the one I had seen from the outfield — suddenly appeared nearby. The figure, who I just noticed to have a shock of wild black hair, was crouched over the ball, as if to pick it up. Then the apparition vanished, and I was left looking at just the softball. But even as I stared at that, it almost seemed to flicker and change colors, from dirty off-white to a purer, brighter white that was almost…silver.

Then Wilson scooped it up and threw it to Gavin, and I shook myself out of my haze. What was happening? Who was that man? I could swear I hadn't imagined him, but —

Gavin threw the ball and I lost my train of thought, as I was too busy swinging the bat.

My bat connected with something solid, and, contrary to common occurrence, it wasn't someone's body. I had hit the ball a second time, but this time, dead on target. It was a perfect hit.

Except that the ball didn't go anywhere. _We _did.

When my bat connected with the surface of the ball, there was something akin to an explosion. Well, not really an explosion, more like a flash of bright, blinding light. The force ran up the length of the bat and jarred my arms, numbing my fingers and setting my teeth on edge.

All of the aforementioned occurred in the space of one millisecond.

After the blinding light faded, I was left with only a pitch-black void to stare at and only the sensation of being pulled through the fabric of time itself to draw solace from.

Needless to say, the feeling of having involuntarily set off a time-travel device did not provide much comfort.

* * *

"Uh, sir? I think she's awake…"

I groaned and rolled over onto my side. For some reason, whatever I was laying on (and now I realize that it was probably the floor) felt really hard and cold. Meh. I was tired. I'd deal with it. I squeezed my eyes tighter and pretended I hadn't heard the unfamiliar voice.

Then came another unfamiliar voice. "Which 'she'?"

"Number nine, sir."

Nine…hmm. I liked the number nine. It was my favorite number. It was also my number on the mailboxes where we turned in our homework. Homework…that reminded me. I hadn't done my current event yet. Hmm. (As you can probably tell, this is my thought process when I am drowsy. Not particularly sharp.)

Then second unfamiliar voice came back. "The one who set off the taco?"

Why were they talking about tacos? Meh, I was probably still dreaming. Involuntarily I giggled, just a little bit.

There was silence. Then the first voice said, sounding very serious as he did so, "Yes sir. The one who set off the taco. The one who just laughed at us."

Oh well. No point in pretending I was asleep any longer, at least if this wasn't a dream. Sluggishly, I opened my eyes and found myself staring at two shiny black shoes.

The shoes were being worn by two feet, which were connected to legs, which were connected to a body, which had a head on top of it. My eyes traveled from the shoes and up the legs (which were covered by pressed black pants) and to the body (which, like the legs, were also clothed, but rather in a white lab coat) and up to the head, which was very young, very freckled, very curious, and very green.

Needless to say, I woke up completely and instantly. I didn't know I was up and scrambling backwards until I found myself pressed against a solid metal wall, which was surrounded by metal walls on the other sides and about five feet from the clear glass door, through which I could see the green-faced man. Yes, green. His face was a pure, bright shade of lime green not found in nature, which contrasted with his curly orange-red hair. He was about eighteen years old (which is a guess, for I am horrible at guessing ages) and looked about as scared as I probably did.

"Whoa!" he cried, stumbling backwards just as I did the same. "Whoa —sir, aren't they supposed to be — you know, subdued and drowsy or something?"

Another man entered the limited field of vision provided by the glass door. The two were both dressed in white lab coats, but while the green-faced ginger was short, stocky, and…well, green, this man was tall, thin, and very pale. His milk-white face was sharp yet young and handsome in an almost exotic way, which contrasted with his shock of wild dark hair. Instead of black dress shoes, pressed pants, and a button-up shirt, he wore black Converse, black jeans, and a black t-shirt. He reminded me of Nico di Angelo from the Percy Jackson series, if Nico di Angelo was in his twenties and wore a lab coat. Maybe he looked more like L from Death Note because of the structure of his face, and maybe that way his hair sprang up a bit more than was natural…but L had gray eyes. I would not tolerate such a difference.

A wry smile pecked at his lips. Another Nico similarity — a seriously creepy smile. I liked this guy already. I decided to call him Mr. Creepy and the green-faced one Mr. Green, for obvious reasons. "It depends. This one is…" He searched for a word, and I could tell that he had a list of more offensive and more descriptive adjectives than the one he eventually decided on. "…abnormal."

I glared at him. "Thanks." Though I glared, I actually did take it as a real compliment.

Mr. Creepy's smile grew a tad wider and altogether way more creepy. "You are welcome. Now, I expect that you have a million annoying questions for me, so go right ahead and ask them."

"All at once?" I asked. If I asked him all my questions all at once, we'd be here for a while.

"All at once," he confirmed. I didn't think that meant that he'd answer them all at once, or even at all.

I considered this. "No."

Mr. Creepy raised a nearly nonexistent eyebrow. "What?"

"Instead," I continued, "I'll just ask you one."

"Fire away."

"What do you mean by 'set off the taco'?"

Both Mr. Creepy and Mr. Green seemed somewhat taken aback by this odd choice in queries. Mr. Creepy regained his composure first. "Um, yes. 'TACO' is an acronym. An acronym is, if you don't know — "

I started not liking this guy. He might've looked like Lawliet or Nico di Angelo, but neither of them (my dear sweethearts) were this annoying. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what an acronym is. I'm not stupid, mister. Get to the point."

Mr. Creepy — okay, let's change his name to Mr. About-To-Beat-My-Snot-Out — scowled. "Fine, then," he sniffed. "TACO is an acronym for the Time/Area Continuum-altering Object. I programmed one inside something that looks similar to what you would call a softball, and when you hit it, it activated the sensory/shock panels and set off the TACO."

I stared at him, slack-jawed. "I hear words," I said. "They sound familiar, but I make no sense of them."

Mr. Green and Mr. About-To-Beat-My-Snot-Out exchanged a glance. "I thought you said that her IQ was higher than mine," Mr. Green whispered very audibly.

"It is," Mr. About-To-Beat-My-Snot-Out/Mr. Still-Very-Creepy hissed somewhat contemptuously.

I cleared my throat. "Uh, hello, I'm sitting right here," I said. "Hehe, sorry about that. I understood you completely. I'm just feeling kinda snarky today."

They didn't seem able to take this in entirely. They just stared at me with the "I-think-she's-lost-her-marbles" look that I tend to get a lot.

I coughed and brushed my annoying dark bangs out of my eyes. They'd taken all of my clothes, even my ponytail holder (which wasn't technically a piece of clothing, but whatever) and now I wore this really weird orange jumpsuit thingamajig that thankfully covered everything that needed to be covered. But I felt uncomfortable that they had _undressed me entirely _to put me in the thing. The only thing they'd left on me was my glasses, for which I was grateful because without my glasses, I'd be walking into walls and mistaking horses for very large dogs.

"So, uh," I said, still a bit awkwardly, "if that was a time-travel device, then when am I?"

Mr. Creepy's lip twitched in a bit of an amused smile, and his dark eyebrow went up. I couldn't help think that, even in a lab coat, he was really cute. " '_When _am I?' " he repeated.

I stared at him and his little green friend. "Yeah. You know, when. I kind of want to know where, too, but _when _am I is the more important question."

His lips twitched again. "I like the way you think, Skylar." I didn't want to know how he knew my name. He turned and gestured to the room behind him and beyond my prison door. In his hands was a small silver remote, and his bony white thumb went down and pressed a button on it.

"Welcome, child of the twenty-first century, to the year of the Eight Hundredth Hunger Games."

* * *

**Don't worry, it'll start making sense. I'll include you other guys, trust me.**

…**maybe.**


	2. Fog Machines and Perfectly Sane Fangirls

**chocykitty: Hehe…sorry. I have a LOT of fanfics on hold at the moment, and Children of Fear (the one you're probably talking about) is one of them. Don't worry, I'll try to finish that one as soon as I can.**

**landon allens (Guest): Touché. Hehe, you gave me an idea.  
I feel so flattered by your praise… UwU**

**Guest: Thanks! Just published it, actually…**

**This next chapter is mostly dialogue, and most of it I typed out under the cover of darkness — which is to say, during those hours in which I should have been getting much-needed sleep.**

**Bolded parts are author's notes.**

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games. SC, don't sue.**

* * *

When the creepy hot scientist guy pressed the button on the remote, the metal walls all around me vanished.

Well, not really. Because when I charged the air where the walls had been, I met some very solid and very painful resistance. The walls were glass. After lying on the ground and moaning over my boo-boos for a few seconds, I realized that _on the other side of the glass, I had seen PEOPLE._

I scrambled up and pressed my hands against the glass wall to my right. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. On the other side of the wall was my friend Brianna Elms (known as BlackAngelDarkLife here on ), curled up on the ground in the fetal position. She was wearing an ugly orange jumpsuit just like I was. Her purple hair (artificially purple, of course — whaddya think she is, an Oompa Loompa?) spilled over her shoulders and on the ground. And in the glass cell beyond her, I could make out the sleeping form of Amelia Selene. And beyond her, Alexa Chaplaine. And so on — there were eleven glass cells with eleven sleeping girls in them, all of them girls that I knew from my class.

I whirled around and stared at the glass wall to my left. Same there — small glass cells similar to mine, stretching down and almost beyond my field of vision. Twelve boys. The one nearest to me was Brendan Lottes.

Reality began to sink in and my carefree façade slipped away. I found myself stepping backwards and pressed up against the wall, my eyes wide and my breathing quick. Twenty-four children…

_The Eight Hundredth Hunger Games, _he'd said…

No. No. No. It couldn't be. They were playing a really cruel joke on us, that was it. It…it just couldn't be true. I'd been toying with the idea of the time-travel taco — I could almost _see_ the clever honesty in Mr. Creepy's black eyes — but…the Hunger Games?

I didn't know what to say.

I didn't even know if, even if I had something to say, I could have said anything at all.

* * *

Let me clear something up a bit.

I love the Hunger Games. The series by Suzanne Collins, that is. I was the kind of fan who wrote fanfiction about the Capitol Games (*cough which you all should read if you have finished the book series cough*), who started taking archery lessons just because I felt like it, who's read the series at least five times over. Yeah. That kind of fan. Truthfully, I like Rise of the Guardians and PJO a lot better, but Hunger Games is pretty cool. Not really my favorite, but when it comes to it and when the fandom's hottest, I'm one of the most rabid fangirls out there.

But at the news that I was about to be _thrown _into one of my favorite fandoms, things took on a whole different light.

* * *

First thing I did was sort out my thoughts.

There weren't many to sort.

Second thing I did was glare at Mr. Creepy and Mr. Green. "Seriously," I said, taking on that condescending, "I'm-Way-Smarter-Than-You-And-We-Both-Know-It" tone that I know annoys the crap out of people, "the Hunger Games. Right." I pretended that I didn't believe them, which shamefully I kind of did. Why? Because I'm the author of this stupid fanfic, that's why!

* * *

**Well, there goes the fourth wall.**

** Hehe, sorry. Can't help it.**

** For those of you who don't know, the phrase "breaking the fourth wall" is used when referring to when the characters of a fanfic know they are in a fanfic.**

** So far, the only one who has broken this fanfic's fourth wall so far is me.**

** Oh, don't worry, I'm pretty sure everyone else will soon enough.**

** Maybe.**

* * *

Enough with the Author's Note. Back to the story.

Apparently, Mr. Creepy was used to the "I'm-Way-Smarter-Than-You-And-We-Both-Know-It" tone (he seemed like the type who'd use it on a regular basis) and knew how to handle it. He just smirked wryly. "So you do know of the Hunger Games," he said.

I stared at him. "Of course I know about the Hunger Games," I said, as if it were obvious. I then proceeded in telling him about Suzanne Collins, the book series, the movies, the fanfictions (I didn't tell him that we were _in _one, but I did tell him about Fighting Fire because hey, I'm a pathetic advertiser), Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, Gale Hawthorne, the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, the rebellion —

By this point, Mr. Creepy was growing dangerously pale — or just paler than normal — and Mr. Green looked like he was about to blow a gasket. Finally, he burst. "There was no rebellion!" he yelled, his lime-colored face tinting with the same color as his hair. "Katniss Everdeen died! Thresh Phillips of District 11 won the Seventy-Fourth Annual Hunger Games!"

All was silent for a very long time.

Someone coughed. It wasn't me or either of the two weird guys in lab coats.

"Um, excuse me for asking," said the voice that had coughed, "but wouldn't that be an AU?"

I looked through the glass walls and saw that my classmates, once asleep on the floor, were stirring, getting up, and looking around bewilderedly. Only one was standing — Amelia Selene, the girl who'd coughed.

"Sky?" she asked, turning and looking at me. "What's going on here?"

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it, hung my head, and rubbed my temples. "I don't know, Amelia. I don't know."

Brianna, in the cell next to me, frowned. "Sky, is this another one of your crazy fanfics?"

Okay, maybe I wasn't the only one to break the fourth wall. A couple people said "what?" or didn't seem to know what was going on. Amelia and Brianna were the only other ones who seemed to get it.

Amelia groaned. "No, not again…"

I smiled sheepishly. "Uh…whoops?"

"Pardon me for inquiring," said Mr. Creepy in his smooth voice, "but is this a common recurrence for you?"

We all, and by all I mean all twenty-four of us, looked at him. Madison Bengur's jaw dropped open, and she wasn't the only girl to do so either. Okay, okay, maybe I _might_ have forgotten to mention that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Creepy was _really hot_…but hey, when I mentioned Nico di Angelo and L Lawliet, his hotness factor should have already been applied.

Next to me, Brianna was frozen in time and Amelia's eyes were glazing over. Then Amelia bowed her head a bit (still keeping her eyes on NdA/L lookalike) and held out her palms. "I will do whatever you wish, Master Lawliet. Please, what can I do for you?"

Mr. Creepy frowned. "Um…what?"

I stepped up to the glass door and winked. "She gets like this a lot. But no worries; we both know that you'll always be mine."

"Excuse me?" Mr. Creepy asked, raising his infamous eyebrow again.

"HEY!" Amelia and Brianna objected, only to be ignored.

"Hey, hey, no PDA, you guys," Luke Wagonwheel put in, smiling at me and Mr. Creepy very creepily. "This is a family film, remember!"

Some of the boys started snickering because they're immature and they're boys. I gave them a death glare. "Shut up."

"Make me," Niall Whitefield told me from three cells down. I resolved that if I ever got out of this mess, I was going to kick him where it hurts.

"Sky…" Brianna warned.

"What?" I snapped.

"You're clenching your fists again."

I realized that I was and, with some effort, unclenched them.

"How are you guys so calm?!" Madison exploded. "We've just been dropped into these…cell thingies, and now — "

"We have two very weird meteorologist guys staring at us," Syd Burnblack said, somewhat dazed.

"Actually," Amelia put in, "the hot one reminds me more of the Tenth Doctor…except a younger, more L-like version…"

"If you could be so kind as to _stop calling me things that I'm not _— " interjected Mr. Creepy/Nico's older deadringer (no pun intended)/Lawliet-lookalike/the Tenth Doctor. Only now that I was introduced to the last fandom similarity did I recognize the distinctive hints of what might have been a British accent. Reminded me of Jude Law. He was so awesome in Rise of the Guardians.

"Okay, Mr. Creepy," I said.

He gave me this look, like, _Really? _"I have this feeling that I am going to grow to really hate you."

"That feeling's probably correct," I replied with a smile.

"So, what is your real name?" Anna Purpleston asked.

"You shall address me as 'sir' or Dr. Card," not-Mr.-Creepy answered. "But my lime-faced protégé here…you can call him whatever you want. I don't care."

"Uh, excuse me!" Mr. Green objected. "I have a name!"

"I don't care," Dr. Card repeated with a perfectly straight face.

Wilson Tree snapped his fingers and did a Tyra Banks head roll. "Oh! He told ya!" He'd been pretty much talking the entire time, as was typical for him, but I'd completely ignored him. Seriously, when you've had to spend seven hours a day, five days a week, four weeks a month, nine months a year, nine-ish years of life in the same room as the chatterboxes of our class, you learn to ignore these things. (I say _nine-ish_ because I'm not telling you how long I've actually been in school with some of these people! So I'm saying nine-ish.)

Mr. Green's face turned red and he began to resemble a Christmas ornament. I giggled at the thought.

The smaller of the two time-scientist-guys whirled on me. "Shut up!" he roared — or rather, squealed, because his voice was embarrassingly high for an eighteen-year-old. "I am SICK of you already, Skylar Liu! In fact — in fact — I hope you bleed to death!"

All was silent for a very, very long time.

And then, as one, our entire XXXXXth grade class broke out into a wave of uncontrollable laughter.

"Oh — oh my gosh — " I was crying. Not in hurt feelings or anything, but rather laughter. "The look on your face — " I cracked up again. "That — that stupid movie — "

"IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Mr. Green shrieked, and stomped out of the door melodramatically.

"No," Carol Plopp said, relatively straight-faced. "It's hilarious."

Dr. Card was looking very confused. "What?" he asked. "Seriously, what's so funny?"

Still shaking from laughter, I tried to get ahold of myself, clean off my glasses, and wipe the tears from my eyes. "Sorry," I replied. "It's just — we read this book called the Call of the Wild, and we had to watch the movie, and there was this guy — " A ripple of snickers ran through me and my classmates " — who was, like, really mad, and so he told this other guy — who had a freaking _gun, _by the way — that exact same thing, except he said 'freeze to death'…and they both had the same squeaky, squealing voice…" I cracked up again. Brianna reached over and patted the glass between our cells in the same way she might pat my arm had there not been said wall of glass between us.

"Calm down, girly," she grinned.

"Trust me, I'm trying…" I snorted.

"Then you need try no longer."

Dr. Card whirled around and all of our eyes were drawn to the doors. Somehow they had opened without any of us noticing, and now we saw, silhouetted by the glaring light behind them and the unexplained fog billowing out from the hallway, three figures — two people that looked like soldiers, and one person in the middle. In unison, all three of them stepped out into the room.

I noticed one thing immediately: the soldiers, Peacekeepers probably, were not holding guns, as I had first thought. They were holding fog machines. Go figure.

Then I noticed something else: the middle figure, who was dressed impressively in a pristine gray uniform hung with more gold medals and ribbons than I could count on both my hands and feet and another person's, was exceptionally, unequivocally, undeniably short.

"Hey Wilson," David Valley said. "We've found someone shorter than you."

"Silence!" the little soldier man snapped in a surprisingly deep voice. He might've been intimidating with his buzz-cut gray-blond hair, fierce blue eyes, and hard face had he not been under four feet tall. "You will remain silent, tributes!"

Dr. Card sighed. "Here we go again. Children of the twenty-first century, meet our headstrong President Coriolanus Snow the Twenty-fourth. President Snow, please do not disturb the tributes. They're shaken enough as it is."

President Snow XXIV whirled on Dr. Card and I was afraid that we would have to see the poor man get torn apart by an angry midget, but Mr. Card was unfazed. "Nicodemus," Mini-Snow spat. "I thought I told you to get the biggest, strongest, most bloodthirsty teenagers you could find."

_Nicodemus. Nico di Angelo. Go figure._

Dr. Nicodemus Card gave Mini-Snow that weird little half-smile. "It was the year 2013, Snow. There weren't too many of those in ancient America."

_ "Ancient" America?_

"And after all, you _did _pick the year," Nicodemus continued. "I only chose the twenty-four that I thought would be the most amusing for our viewers."

Mini-Snow looked at us in frustration, like we were a bunch of birthday cupcakes that had green frosting instead of blue, like he'd wanted. "But these aren't the right ones. I said twenty-four kids from the year _2113_. The year the war ended. Eight hundred years ago."

"Clearly your note said 2013. I can even show you it if you so wish."

The president of Panem scowled. "Can't you send them back and get other ones? I don't care _what _year they're from anymore. Just get better ones."

"No," Nicodemus (I like the name Nicodemus, so I'll just address him as such from now on) replied. "The time stream's disturbed enough as it is. You can't even imagine how much work I have now, repairing all the paradoxes in the fabric of time itself. I'm running a risk as it is, so no."

"But — "

"That is my final word on the matter and if you don't like it, then I advise you to either build a better time machine than mine, which is impossible, or postpone the Quell altogether until you can find tributes that will be 'interesting' enough for your needs."

Mini-Snow stayed defiant for a few moments, then he sighed loudly. "Fine. I'll take them."

"Good," said Nicodemus, as if he knew there was no choice for Mini-Snow anyway. "Shall we continue?"

Mini-Snow nodded reluctantly. I raised a hand tentatively.

"Um," I said, "aren't we going to get to that part where we introduce all the tributes and describe them in extreme detail so that the readers at least know our characters' names and general appearances, or at most are bored out of their brains?"

They all stared at me.

Quite eloquently, twenty-seven people — even the Peacekeepers with the fog machines — said,

"What?"

* * *

**(Sorry, I just couldn't resist.**

** Hehe…whoopsie?**

** Fast rewind. You guys never read that up there…)**

* * *

Mini-Snow nodded reluctantly. "Fine. Have you taken roll call yet?"

"Roll call?" asked Nicodemus.

The midget president frowned. "For a genius, you are really stupid. A roll call is — "

"I know what a roll call is. My problem here is that I see no good reason to take one."

"JUST TAKE ONE!" Mini-Snow screamed. We all jumped at the surprising pitch and volume. Who knew that such a small man could hold such a large shriek?

Nicodemus raised an eyebrow. "Okay, okay. As you wish."

Mini-Snow waited as Nicodemus made his way over to the cluttered desk/control panel thingy and computer screen. He took a sleek silver tablet from off its place atop a stack of papers, turned it on, checked a list, and looked up. "Say 'present' when your name is called. Tribute One. Landon Allens."

"Present," the boy whom I had hit with a baseball bat replied.

"Tribute Two. Syd Burnblack."

"Present."

"Tribute Three. Madison Bengur."

"Present."

"Tribute Four. Brent Catson."

"Present."

"Tribute Five. Gavin Johanson."

"Present."

"Tribute Six. Aubrey Gweeoh."

"Present."

"Tribute Seven. David Valley."

"Present."

"Tribute Eight. Nelson Stones."

"Present."

"Tribute Nine. Skylar Liu."

"Present and still awesome."

All was silent as everyone looked at me.

"What?" I asked innocently.

Nicodemus shook his head and continued as if nothing had happened. "Tribute Ten. Brendan Lottes."

"Present."

"Tribute Eleven. Mason Carter."

"Present."

"Tribute Twelve. Anna Purpleston."

"Present."

"Tribute Thirteen. Wilson Tree."

"Present and still BEAST."

"Hey!" I objected, but everyone ignored me.

"Tribute Fourteen. Carol Plopp."

"Present."

"Tribute Fifteen. Amelia Selene."

"Present."

"Tribute Sixteen. Niall Whitefield."

"Present."

"Tribute Seventeen. Chenise Milliams."

"Present."

"Tribute Eighteen. Alexa Shaplyn."

"Present."

"Tribute Nineteen. Trave Winters."

"Present and still epic."

"STOP STEALING MY LINES!"

(Needless to say, everyone ignored me.)

"Tribute Twenty. Brianna Elms."

"Present."

"Tribute Twenty-One. Luke Wagonwheel."

"Here." Just like Luke. Always the rebel.

"Tribute Twenty-Two. Bailey Sage."

"Present."

"Tribute Twenty-Three. Matthias Jogger."

"Present."

"Tribute Twenty-Four. Kylie Gabberts."

"Present."

Nicodemus looked up from his tablet, then at Mini-Snow, and gestured with his hands as if saying, _Now what?_

Mini-Snow inclined his chin. "No district numbers?"

"Just classroom numbers," replied Nicodemus. "We'll assign them districts to represent."

President Snow frowned. "Thank you," he said after a long pause, looking us over in distaste. His gaze landed on me, and I gave him my famous evil grin. He narrowed his eyes. "That is all."

"The tribute parade is tonight," Nicodemus said. "Shall I send them in to their stylists?"

"Yes. Once again, Dr. Card, thank you." He turned to go, but he halted at the doorway and looked back. "Oh, and Nicodemus."

I think the tiny president was trying to sound intimidating and official, but his height (or lack of) somewhat subtracted from this effect. Nicodemus only raised an eyebrow. It seemed to be one of his favorite gestures to tell a person _I am not impressed. _"Yes?" he asked, perfectly poker-faced.

"Make sure they're pretty enough for the Capitol crowd."

Someone snorted. I have to admit, I cracked a grin too. It was a nervous grin, though — I'd read the books and seen the movies, and I knew what we had to do before the parades.

"Yes sir," said Nicodemus in a perfectly straight face, and with that, the Peacekeeepers turned on their fog machines and President Coriolanus Snow XXIV vanished into the artificial white mist.

The doors slammed behind them. Nicodemus turned to us and clasped his hands in front of him.

I started getting really scared.

"Well," he said brightly, or at least as amiably as Doctor Card could sound without sounding overly creepy, "who's ready for a makeover?"

That was when the terror became too much, and I passed out.

* * *

**No, I'm not going to describe the tributes' appearances. One, I'm too lazy, and two, this is mostly geared towards the actual people involved, so they should be able to figure out who's who. If not, and you guys (meaning my classmates) are just confused, ask me tomorrow.**

**Yes, I'm actually going to do all that boring introduction stuff before we get to the killing parts. Sorry, but I gotta stick to canon. Don't worry, I'll make it as funny as I can.**


End file.
